Dearly loved Friends,
In our letter to you of 24 November 2009, we addressed the subject of the family and its role in the advancement of civilization, drawing attention to the need to rear children that see their own welfare as inseparable from the welfare of others. While stressing the importance of family solidarity, particularly as it pertains to social progress, we called for caution in this respect, lest devotion to family interests diminish one’s commitment to justice and compassion for all or provide an excuse for perpetuating a harmful mentality of “us and them”. Many, indeed, are the ways in which the family can contribute to the life of society—for example, as an economic unit it can play a significant part in alleviating a variety of problems born of the economic inequalities so prevalent in the world today.
The relative prosperity enjoyed by the Bahá’ís of Iran in the past can be attributed to a culture that lays great emphasis on education and learning and which recognizes as an act of worship the assiduous and honest pursuit of a useful trade or profession, undertaken in the spirit of service. Present social and economic conditions in Iran, combined with the restrictions so unjustly imposed on you in recent years by some authorities, have made it difficult for you to gain access to higher education, to secure steady employment, and to serve the wider community. We take pleasure in knowing that, despite such obstacles, you are striving to pass on to your children the culture which has so distinguished your community. Without doubt, the social and economic development of your nation will require, especially among its younger generations, a fundamental shift in perspective, one that changes the way in which certain essential concepts are viewed—the true purpose of life, the nature of progress, the meaning of true happiness and well-being, and the place that material pursuits should assume in one’s individual and family life. In this light, we are providing in the paragraphs that follow a few comments on the family and its influence on social and economic affairs, in the hope that they will assist you in engaging in constructive dialogue with your compatriots.